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If they can prove Bush knowingly lied like they can prove the CBS memos were fake you would have a leg to stand on. Considering the latter is supported by fact, while the former is a weak partisan hypothesis that is not supported by fact and requires cynical assumptions about Bush's motives, you do not.

The problem Learyfan, is that you equate a particularly prejudaced theory with an established fact and complain about double standards.

Reminds me of people in the Clinton days saying "Everyone got mad at Nixon for stealing files and lying, but nobody complains about Clinton killing Vince Foster and Arkansas State Troopers!"

no...see thats exactly the point. It's not a "bush lied" or "rather lied" situation. Both situations are exactly the same because bush trusted the (for instance) claims about saddamn buying uranium from nigeria and he used that information to convince people to go to war. Maybe he didn't know it was bullshit at the time so he didn't technically "lie". Whether or not it was intentional or not is not the issue in this paticular case. Dan rather trusted his own intelligence and reported on it and the memo turned out to be fake. It doesn't mean he knew about it. There is no proof that he lied on purpose, but he misled people all the same.

and pople want him to resign over this while bush did basically the exact same thing in more serious circumstances yet those same people don't want bush to resign. that's why it makes no sense and that's why it's just a partisan double standard like it always is.

--------------------Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell; spirituality is for those who have been there.

I think you have point here, however Rather's 'intelligence' was even worse than Bush's. Bush had George Tennet saying Iraq WMDs were a "slam dunk" and the whole world intelligence community believing Saddam had weapons. Dan Rather had practically nothing at all but the word of Bill Burkett.

And secondly, I have a problem with motives. Although the scales are different, the mistakes about Iraq were much less petty than using an irrelevent old story to sink Bush's re-election chances. In this regard I think it is more fair to criticize CBS because their actions were motivated less by the safety of the country than smearing the candidate they don't like.

Lastly, CBS is a news organization. It's job is to be unbiased. Politicians always push their agenda's, only poor journalists do it for them.

The similarities between the CBS mess and the Iraq war are pretty damn blatant. And I'd really like to see someone try and say it's not.
But I think everyone arguing over who "knowingly lied" is pretty pointless. I don't think either man was intentionally being dishonest. But I think they are both surrounded by people who are willing to severely bend the truth in order to sell their position. As far as I'm concerned, Rather is a man who gets paid millions to read off a teleprompter. He's not in charge of verifying everything he reads off it. You could argue Bush basically does the same thing for less money. If anyone needs to resign, it's the people who are feeding these two men information. On the Bush's end, I suppose Tenent already did that. But I also hold Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Rove very responsible. At CBS, I'm sure there are a number of people (various high level producers I'm guessing) who should rightfully catch heat and resign over this.
But the idea of either of the figureheads, as hollow as they are, resigning is unrealistic and pointless.

The similarities between the CBS mess and the Iraq war are pretty damn blatant. And I'd really like to see someone try and say it's not.

The two situations aren't even close. No comparison.

What almost no one here seems to grasp is that the outrage is not over Rather being duped by clumsily forged documents which wouldn't fool a typist in the steno pool. People are allowed to be stupid. Everyone gets fooled from time to time.

The outrage is over the way CBS handled the situation once it became obvious to anyone with a copy of Microsoft Word that they were forgeries. There is no possible way that anyone with the sense to pour piss out of a boot could believe the documents were real after even a casual reading of the evidence to the contrary available within twenty-four hours, much less defend them vigorously for nearly two weeks. That is more than just bias, that's outright dishonesty. It rivals Nixon's stonewalling.

And this is giving Rather -- and his producer and everyone else at CBS who greenlighted the show -- the benefit of the doubt. There is a plausible case to be made that Rather and his producer knew from the get-go the documents were bogus.

And make no mistake about it -- it was Rather who was driving the stonewalling. A whole hell of a lot of others working for CBS expressed their misgivings a whole hell of a lot earlier in the game. His involvement in this is quite a bit more substantial than just a guy reading from a telprompter, and to believe otherwise is to be ignorant of the facts of the situation.

First off, yeah maybe you're right about Rather's position. I've been doing a bunch of reading on his place at CBS News since I made that post (one day, I'll learn from you and look things up before I post). Though, until I see hard evidence to the contrary, I'll assume they weren't originally aware of the forgeries. They just got excited over sorta burning Bush (yes, they're biased) and rushed it. I have to believe that people who have been in journalism for forty years aren't dumb enough to try and pass off what they know to be Word documents as real. Hell, I wouldn't be that dumb.

Secondly, come on. Yes, CBS stonewalled for two weeks, then caved and offered a relatively good apology. I'm not making an argument for CBS News' credibility. I think they've had issues for a long time now. But for fucks sake, how long did the White House stonewall on its forged documents? Then, finally coming out and offering one of the most minimal half assed apologies in memory? No comparison, Pinky?And when it comes to stonewalling, I think Bush actually wakes up and starts directing the action. All presidents hate admitting they're wrong, but this one acts as if he's never heard of the concept. Zahid's right, Americans hate people willing to admit they've made a mistake. But I think it takes a lot of balls.

Though, until I see hard evidence to the contrary, I'll assume they weren't originally aware of the forgeries. They just got excited over sorta burning Bush (yes, they're biased) and rushed it.

A reasonable position to take. Again, though, the main problem isn't that they rushed to broadcast too quickly, but that they stonewalled. If they had come out two days later and said something along the lines of "Based on the information we've received since airing the program, we no longer have confidence in our conclusion that Bush fucked the dog in his last few months of duty in the Texas Air National Guard," it would have been embarassing but not fatal.

Apart from the whole document issue, the other pillar of their story was Ben Barnes -- as partisan a waterboy for the DNC as one could possibly find. He's the co-chair of the Kerry campaign, fa cryin' out loud as well as the third largest contributor to Kerry. What he said on the program contradicts what he has said in the past on the issue in sworn testimony -- and CBS knew that before they ever aired the program.

But for fucks sake, how long did the White House stonewall on its forged documents?

Quote:pinksharkmark said: There is a plausible case to be made that Rather and his producer knew from the get-go the documents were bogus. pinky

Sure, but anyone could say the exact same thing about Bush's pre-war intelligence. Infact there were plenty of itelligence agents saying that iraq was no threat.

We can't play this game of picking and choosing when we demand proof and we opt to go without it. Show some proof that dan rather knowingly lied. If you can't it's immpossible to imagine how you don't see the connection here between the two different events.

Personally though, i think you are right. There is no comparison.

One man (dan rather) misled the american public during elections and stonewalled for two weeks on the bogus info, and then apologized for his mistakes.

Bush on the other hand stonewalled for months, led our nation to war on his BS intelligence, caused the deaths of thousands, cost our country billions of dollars, destroyed international relations with the rest of the world, then finally admitted he might have been wrong, and then on top of that he didn't apologize to anyone.

There is no comparison because one of these two men should be impeached and possibly brought up on charges for war crimes (for the illegal war) while the other should maybe just resign.

but i'm not expecting any of the right wingers here to realize the obvious double standards/irony involved in this situation.

--------------------Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell; spirituality is for those who have been there.

And yeah, I'm very interested in the Ben Barnes thing. I'm still not sure who I'm voting for, and for the moment, it could be Kerry. But if it starts to look like this leads all the way back to him (or he knew about it), there's no chance I'd vote for him.

Ah... the yellowcake thing. A French disinformation ploy, and a successful one at that.

The difference is that the yellowcake forgery was a tiny little piece lost in a sea of other reasons for the invasion. Bush never said "Hussein must be deposed because he tried to obtain uranium ore from Nigeria". The coalition would have invaded, document or no document.

Quote:But if it starts to look like this leads all the way back to him (or he knew about it), there's no chance I'd vote for him.